Risk of Rain 2: How to restore lost profiles or saves

Risk of Rain 2 is a hellaciously challenging and fun roguelike from Hopoo Games. Unfortunately, one of the biggest challenges seems to be related to your profiles getting overwritten and even your unlocked characters will disappear. Here’s a mini-guide to help you restore lost profiles or saves.

Risk of Rain 2: Restoring lost progress/corrupted saves

Each time you launch Risk of Rain 2, it’s worth knowing that there’s a chance your save could get wiped. This is because launching the game can sometimes lead to a prompt where you’re asked to create a new profile. Doing so will have your existing profile wiped via the in-game panel and the loss of all your progress.

Thankfully, there’s a quick fix. All you need to do is check Steam’s actual installation folder (not Risk of Rain 2‘s) and find the “userdata” directory. The user ID numbers will be different for everyone, but you should still see “632360” since that’s Risk of Rain 2‘s app ID. Open it and check out remote\UserProfiles.

Here’s an example: C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\userdata\<user id>\632360\remote\UserProfiles

As you can see above, I’ve got two XML files in that folder. One of those (the one that’s highlighted) happens to be the original profile/save I had. The other one (recently created/newer) only popped up after I was prompted to create a new profile. Here’s what you need to do:

• Create a new backup folder so you can copy your XML files just in case.
• Right-click to rename the more recent XML file. Highlight the entire filename and copy it. Delete that file once you’ve copied the filename and once you have a backup.
• Right-click the older XML file to rename it and copy the more recent file’s name.
• Launch Risk of Rain 2.

Once you start the game, it should now detect the correct profile you have. You’ll be able to check on your progress once more. For future reference, anytime you’re prompted to create a new profile, just avoid doing so.

Risk of Rain 2 is available as part of Steam’s early access program. For more information, check out our guides and features hub.